Olympus acknowledges E-M5 / 20mm banding and is working on fix

Olympus has acknowledged the banding that can appear in high ISO OM-D E-M5 images shot with the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 lens and says it is working on a fix. In the meantime, the only solution is to avoid high ISO settings when using that lens, for now. It says that it has tried 'every possible combination of body and lens,' and has not found the problem with other lenses.

Olympus statement:

'After checking every possible combination of a body and a lens, we found the phenomena only with this combination (OM-D, E-M5 coupled with the Panasonic 20mm pancake lens). We are continuing to study how we can eliminate this and we recommend for our customers using E-M5 with Panasonic 20mm pancake lens to keep a low ISO to avoid this problem for the time being.'

Comments

I think I know where the problem is coming from. I played around with my e-m10 + 20/1.7, and sure enough, banding at ISO 400 and above. But only with the autofocus on.The moment you switch to manual focus the banding is gone.So I think it's the AF motor of the lens electrically (RF) interfering with the off-sensor amp of the camera. The higher the amp is turned up (higher ISO in photographer speak), the worse the influence of this interference.That may mean there is no fix. I assigned MF to Fn1 so I can prefocus and the switch to MF. Not great, and very annoying since the 20/1.7 is one of the best overall m43 lenses. Light, bright, short, sharp (well, in the center).

The autofocus motor works before, not during exposure. The lens focus motor still works even in MF mode. There is no other way of adjusing focus. These lenses have not direct, physical control of focus. What you experience is most probably a seemingly random variation in the banding. It's hard to find a pattern and a trigger, I've done that as well. Some people think it has to do with "warming up" something. But sometimes you just can't tell why it's here, and then not here. One thing is constant though, closing down the aperture affects banding, usually making it worse, maybe due to the extra current draw that it requires.

Has anyone compared results with the latest E-M5 firmware versus older versions of the firmware to see if they sneaked in something in the last firmware to address this, without publicly stating they had done this in the release notes?

It has been 22 months since Olympus admitted the problem and since then they have gone silent. I haven't heard another word about this. Olympus, you admitted it and said you were investigating. At the very least have the respect and courtesy for your customers to tell us what the result is.

I got here while searching for information on noise banding on the OM-D. I am patched to current firmware (v1.5). I noticed the noise banding in dark areas of the sky while shooting a night scene on a mountain. I could clearly see the banding at ISO800 and even down to 400 it was pretty obvious. Only at ISO200 did it *almost* disappear (still visible but not very noticeable).

Here's the kicker: THIS WAS WITH THE KIT 12-50mm LENS, not the Lumix 20mm. Also the board discussion about EM interference is probably not applicable since I was at least 300ft. away from the nearest electrical source. I'd really like to find some answers for this issue; high on my list of reasons to buy this camera was reasonable high-ISO performance (in a small package).

When is Olympus going to fix this? It has been almost 8 months since Olympus acknowledged this problem. I just got back from a month in Nepal and I used my E-M5 while there. I also used the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 in lower light and as I am processing the raw files in LR 4.3 today I am discovering that they all have serious banding. :-( I don't know if any of them can be salvaged. :-( By the way, I have the latest 1.5 firmware for the E-M5 and the latest firmware for the lens too.

They're never going to fix it, otherwise they would have done so by now.

It's often extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fix a hardware issue with software. And given that there are Zuiko lenses in the same range, why would Olympus spend the time and money fixing a problem which would impact sales of their own lenses?

I'm sure that the admission of the problem and the claim that they're working on a fix is merely an exercise in good PR.

I want to buy this lens to mount on my OM-D, but this banding problem is causing me to rethink whether I should buy this lens or consider the 25mm PanaLeica. I might wait for the Olympus 17mm f/1.7 to come out next year.

It has been 2.5 months and we are *still* waiting for this. Also, Olympus released firmware 1.2 a long time ago to fix the lockup problem with Panasonic lenses (must remove battery to unbrick camera), but a few days later they pulled the release so we can't get a fix. :-( I am *still* waiting for a fix to this serious lockup problem. Anyone know what is going on with both of these problems?

I am just waiting for Fuji to return my X10 with a replaced sensor that will supposedly sort the WHITE ORB issue and now to my shock and horror I found that I can get the same issue with the OM-D E-M5 using the M.Zuiko 40-150mm

http://flickr.com/gp/just_solutions/0KM371

Is this just an odd one off or has anyone else noticed this?

Otherwise, after just a few days of playing with it I am quite happy. You can see the results here:http://flickr.com/gp/just_solutions/c1cm23/

I set my video button on my OM-D to Manual Focus. Works great and no more accidental videos like on my old GF1 where I could disable it or on my NEX5N where I can't. For the 5N, I am looking for a very small flat cap that I can put over it. Very annoying feature to have on a still camera. But that's progress (?).

As was pointed out to you months ago this is a completely different issue - your problem is due to the fact that fluorescent lighting changes colour very rapidly, and has nothing to do with the lens other than what shutter speed you end up with as a function of the aperture setting.

I did a theatre shoot last night using the 20mm and 45 mm at 6400 ISO and RAW, definitely see banding, on pics shot with 20mm. I did a similar job a few weeks ago, same conditions, but shot jpegs and do not see the same problem.Oh, and the problem seems to only exist in the shadow underexposed areas, I have to shoot more images tonight, if I use the 20mm I may try a slight over exposure as a test.

And of course, IBIS. Makes videos look like they were shot on a tripod, fluid head or shoulder-rig. No more need to lug around big gear for casual shooting and no more shaky footage! Awesomeness!

So far... my only gripe... no magnify in Video mode; not even with MF assist nor if setting Fn2 to muti-function" (which includes Magnify in its' included 4 quick-chose-options). I guess I can switch from still modes to video modes quickly though. Also noticed a small bug. If your Video-mode Exp setting is set to M, it [I]Has[/I] to be in video-mode. Ie: if you hit the video-record button in m/s/a/p, even if video-mode exp. setting in the menu is set to M, it will record in Auto-Exp.

....So you have to make sure your left mode-knob is always on Video-Mode if you want to shoot Manual Video...not a huge deal, but I can see that I and others will forget from time to time, especially in the heat of the moment when out shooting... and might come home to find out you just captured a bunch of clips, that are ruined because it's on auto-exposure.

@fooddudeone. Easy fix: reassign the video record button to do something useful, like change ISO. Then the only way you can start video recording is to set the mode dial to Video, where the record button works like it should for video (i.e. it doesn't do ISO.)

At 7:00 pm:- Article on Olympus banding issue: 146 comments- Update to Nikon D800 review: 122 commentsI don't know how to interpret these figures. A technical glitch seems to be more important than the review of what could be the best camera of our times. There's no rational explanation to this.

"...> it is considered a broken and defective piece of camera equipment...."

Spoken like a man (?) who is accustomed to speaking before thinking. Obviously someone who doesn't know what he (?) is talking about. I am one of the rare people who was lucky enough to buy one. I am not going to claim it is the best think since sliced bread, although I prefer to do my own slicing. But it is a really well made and competent camera that is chock full of features that other camera makers with a lot deeper pockets should have thought of. My main criticism of Olympus is that they included probably the worst owners manual ever published, but thanks to the several internet forums, all of the operational questions have been answered. Great little camera. I bought only the body and use all of my 4/3's Panasonic lenses including the f/1.7 with excellent results. I'll worry about the modest banding above ISO 8000 the next time I want to take available light pictures in a coal mine.

@rondhamalam"That's why Panasonic buys the whole Olympus company in an Acquisition."

Better read the news more carefully, and not in forums. Last week Panasonic stated it no longer had any interest. They were after the health care bit. But restructuring costs were too uncertain. Interpretation, the camera business would have been shut down and/or folded into Panasonic.

The days of responsible engineering at Olympus that produced wonderful top of the industry film cameras in the OM series is long over. I still cherish my early 70's OM-1 and OM-1MD, and my other OM-1N and OM-2N.

But since entering the Digital market, Olympus has repeatedly stumbled, often big time, with cameras that were seriously flawed by Engineering. I had (have but it's dead) an Oly E-10 DSLR, which for the time was a wonderful camera even though it had a fixed lens, because that lens was tremendously versatile and accurate. BUT it had a flawed Battery Circuit board designed that failed every two years like clock-work (Oly paid to fix it once, I paid the second time), then the AF circuit kicked the bucket at age 5. That's BS, even a DSLR should last as long as a Film SLR. ONLY recent Oly I loved is the C-7000. Spot on colors, a range-finder, great video recording, fast lens and it still works .. so far.

Who hasn't stumbled? Most recently I remember a certain top brand name have light leak issues on their most recent top end camera ... who was that again? The funny part was the solution of using ... tape.

Don't you see that cameras are more and more complicated with more and more technology ? Maybe this is a source of such flawed ? you can't compare an old OM to the last full of electronic camera... Another problem is the time to develop new products, we (market, customers, firms, etc) ask for faster and faster developments, we want the last technology as fast as possible, we get it...with flawed...

@ AnepoNo part of "Single Lens Reflex" implies the lens needs to be interchangeable. You can have fixed lens or interchangeable lens SLRs, TLRs, or rangefinders. It's the focusing and viewfinder mechanisms that define the "type" of camera, not whether you can change lenses or not. The E-10 was definitely a DSLR.

The "banding" I've seen in postings is really pretty straightforward-looking single-pixel lines with consistently wrong color -- easy to recognize and fix. Actually, much easier to fix than the Fuji X10 "white orbs" problem that my free DeOrbIt tool fixed... but I didn't get all that positive a response to doing that work for the community, so I'm not rushing to put a post-processing fix up for this technically less challenging (and less publishable as research) defect.

Olympus should be able to fix this pretty easily as a post-processing step when the 20mm Panasonic lens is detected, but I'd guess they're trying to fix it at the cause, and that's probably some lens-induced electrical glitch disturbing sensor readout. Really impressive that Olympus cares at all about a problem that happens only with another company's lens.... :)

Correct. Instead of finger-pointing, they should put their brains together and come up first with a cause, second with a cure. At least, that would be the professional and responsible way of tackling the issue...

To the person who made an issue out of the name of the camera being E-M5 rather than OM-D: I don't know about your camera but my OM-D says prominently on the front OM-D, and in small letters next to the mode dial E-M5. Since this the first in the OM series, OM-D is perfectly acceptable. You're just being picky.When they come out with the next model, you may have a point. Until then.....

Another post says it isn't a problem until ISO 6400. That being the case, I'll sleep well tonight and worry about banding the next time I take my camera into a coal mine to shoot available light at f/1.7.

Bah the name matters more than the camera... or so it seem's a lot of people like to think >.>I am curious... how many people that comment here know ANYTHING about photography?! I mean seriously they complain over the name being olympus and not canon or over it being called OM-D because "its nothing like the old om camera I had"

It's a sad day when people start behaving the brand name is more important than the gear and photographer.

I applaud Olympus for doing the right thing, coming forward and admitting the issue. While I wish they would have done that with the E-3 back focus problem and the 14-35 SHG lens problem of focusing in lower light, I think it's good to see them take a step in the right direction in disclosing issues.

This is the right thing to do, and makes the brand gain credibility, imho.

Now now, you're complaining about Fuji without keeping up with how good they've been listening to and treating their customers, though this camera + lens combo hasn't been around as long as the X10 orbs, Fuji is just as keen to deliver good material

The banding has been an issue ever since the E-330 and Olympus did not listen.

Already in 2007 it was proven by me that the focus assist LED could have been easily enabled for *ALL* lenses, manual as well. Did they do it? No.

When the E-3 came out it had serious AF issues. Did they ever fix it or listened? No.

Now they blame the banding on the lens... we have seen that before, blaming on somebody else is a bad way of "listening". They also say that banding is only at very high ISO. That's nonsense. The banding is there already at ISO800 or ISO1600, regardless which lens you are using and in fact in some cases already at ISO200 even with not so severe PP. Look here:

I did buy a Nikon. I can make it band too ... but it does not affect 99.9999% of the photos I take. Nor is this anything more than a minor issue which will either be corrected in firmware or photographers will learn the circumstances in which to not use this lens. People are really looking too hard to find faults that really don't matter to the 99.999999999% of people who use the cameras.

Just rolled some film through my Pentax ZX5n. Works like day one, fresh out of the box. When I bought it it was like $600 with the lens, Made in Japan quality, always ultra reliable. Nowadays: excuses, bs, Chinese crap, overpriced plastic from almost all camera makers. Does anyone trying to put out an honest good camera these days, or it is all about selling the most garbage to the most people?

Hey, this year I bought two Fujis, both suck in every ways. Chinese made bs cameras. Next to me there is a Russian Zenit-E that was made in 1980. My Dad owned it, my brother owned it, now I have it. Never ever once failed, always the best pictures after 100s of rolls of film. These two Fujis won't last 2-3 years I already know it. The smaller P&S already developed an issue with the battery compartment and the shutter curtain.

"Does anyone trying to put out an honest good camera these days, or it is all about selling the most garbage to the most people?"

I agree with that sentiment in general, but in the specific case of the OM-D E-M5, it IS the мукн rare and elusive "honest good" product. Which is not totally surprising as it is their current top-of-the-line, "no holds barred" of this year (although they still sell a few E-5s from 2 years ago with the outdated SLR tech).

In fairness, I had a Zenit SLR made in the 70's. It was a piece of junk, with everything from the optics to the fittings of the body being unacceptable. The final insult came when I put the camera on a tripod and the screw caused a pressure point to be made internally that seized up the shutter. Anyone can have problems, it's how they respond that tells their character.

How you can compare film manual camera to quite complex digital cameras? Those mechanical cameras don't even have that many details, there is not much what can fail. Also, how much film would cost for ~50.000 - 100.000 pics? That's how much you can hope to take with almost any current digital camera. I still have one from oly with 1mpx or something like this. It works, nothing wrong with it and it was made from plastic. By any chance are you throwing your cameras against walls? I don't see other way, how they can fail so quickly.

p.s.I got to use too those russian cameras and home dark room in bath. It's a pain to use, compared to anything currently available, not to mention quality of photos is much better in digital. At most just use old lenses on digital bodies.

I buy and sell a lot of gear, and most of the Pentax ZX film bodies are garbage. Most the shutters/mirrors don't work on any more. However, the 5n was one of their better models, so it might fare a bit better.

I must be daft, but when I shoot video with my legacy lenses, I do so on a video head tripod and make sure to turn IBIS OFF. If I am walking about and can't afford a steady cam, the IBIS seems to perform about as well as I expect such a thing might ever... Can you explain what it is you intend to have happen with this post repeated so many times?

I'm not sure how people get from A to B sometimes. Because you haven't seen this on a completely different camera, you know what's wrong with this one? You've actually tried every m4/3 camera? Pics or it didn't happen!

A more important factor than shielding is the higher sampling rate of the AF in this camera vs. whatever older, slower version you are comparing to. Higher AF sampling rates = potential for running the motors more often and at higher speeds. Shielding only does so much when things are in such close proximity. There is probably a software fix and we'll see it as soon as Oly has it ready.

As to the original comment--Oly and Panny have agreed to jointly support this lens standard, which includes mount AND electronic tech. They both work to make everything compatible. Even if you don't think they should be responsible, they are contractually. That's why they "should fix anything".

Look at the cameras design for christ's sake! It pays homage to the old vintage slr's! And anybody that loves that look, will most likely have old MF lenses too!

Additionally, the biggest reason why many are tradng/selling their cameras to replace them with this one, is for the IBIS! If it doesn't fully function with ALL lenses, and MF lenses, then what's the point of selling their superior in iq and high-iso, bigger APSC sensored cameras like Nex, DSLRS, etc. for this one???

Might as well just keep the Fujis, Nex's, DSLR's, if the IBIS doesn't even work with all lenses on the OMD.

The apsc sensor is superior to the omd's m43. Without the IBIS fully working, the OMD is NOTHING.

I'm from the 60's and 70's so it's kinda like looking in the mirror. I hope they fix the banding issue but I normally don't shoot high ISO anyway. The Panasonic 20mm is a fantastic lens. It looks nice on my silver OM-D.

EM-5 or E-M5, doesnt make a difference, as long as one keeps in mind that it is from a class of OM-D cameras from olympus. EM-5 or E-M5 won't affect the camera's ability to capture and deliver great results, especially in the hands of an able photographer.

speaking of able photographers; an able photographer would be least concerned with the name of the camera , he would rather be concerned about the Image quality and functionality of the camera itself.

O-MD, OMD, OM-D, E-M5, EM5, EM-5... all are irrelevant from a photographic point of view.

Both lenses are great. But as the 20 1.7 is likely the most popular lens in m43 history, saying "just get the 25 1.4" is not much of a solution.

One reason I prefer the 20 1.7 is it focuses much closer than the 25 1.4. 0.66'/0.2 m vs 11.81" (0.3 m) for the 25 1.4. That and the much smaller size, the huge lenshood for the 25 1.4, and $200 more expensive, make the 20 1.7 a better choice for many. The slightly wider view also makes it better suited to street photography.

If it's like the Canon issue cited below (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1019&message=1213477) then it's most likely to happen when using continuous focus or otherwise if the final focus motor movement is too close to sensor reset/exposure.

Or maybe, we are just dealing with an extreme design of a small sensor, a small lens, extreme ISO's. Can't have it all. Everything is a trade off in life. Of course I am probably completely wrong but it does make me wonder. Reading that some of the EOS lenses had a similar problem kind of blows my theory out of the water. Still it raises the question, in the pursuit of smallest fastest sharpest everything, at what point do we say "this is good enough?"

Case in point: I am looking at the 19mm Sigma MFT vs the 20mm Panasonic. While I would prefer the Panny (who wouldn't) I could see myself being very happy with the "bulky" 19mm Sigma which seems to be almost as good with the exception of a fast F stop. I just can't justify the extra dough. I guess if you have the dough for the new OM-D though then this does not apply to you.

The Sigma 19 2.8 is a good lens, not as good as their 30 2.8, but a quality optic nonetheless. But it's not "almost as good" as the 20 1.7 as it's slower, and not as sharp. I do applaud Sigma for producing the 2 lenses for m43, but m43 need faster apertures, and the 20 1.7 offers that.

I admit I did get a little side tracked. I was trying to postulate about possible causes, nothing more.

Regarding the Sigma, I think it would be pretty hard to discern a significant image quality difference vs the Pany 20. I have searched long and hard for comparisons and while few, the few images I did find were quite decent. To say the Pany is significantly better is going to require some proof. Based on the few images I would disagree. I think they are very close IQ wise, and obviously no so close size wise and F-Stop wise. I guess I will have to wait till more people have tested it and done direct comparisons. Unless someone is willing to subsidize the cost, I have to look at the Sigma.

We will never stop. For as long as there is night and there is photography, there will always be challenging exposures.

There are so many situations we just can't do photography in with current tech. And there's so much creative potential that could be unlocked in decades from now when we can shoot in ISO 819200 with our pocketable cameras.

Possibly via electrical interference - something in the lens is "noisy" in a way that Olympus did not anticipate/filter. I vaguely recall reading of a similar issue with Canon cameras and continuous focus on the 50mm f/1.4.